Pretty straight forward, how are folks paying their runners? Are you offering a single pot for the whole team or a payment per runner? I reasoned to myself that most johnson's would prefer to make a single payment on certified cred sticks and let the team handle the split. I tend to pay my runners based on the time the job is expected to take and the expected difficulty. So far i've been using about 4k per person as a pretty good figure and then lettign things go fromt here. They've been exceeding that due to canny decisions and liberal fencing and occasionally just accepting a better offer from other factions. I'm curious to how other people handle this. My runners are still pretty small time (just hitting street cred 1).

I always work in a per runner basis. I know that this isn't how it would really work, the Johnson would offer a certain amount for the job, and usually wouldn't care how you split it, but it just makes things easier if you give the amount of nuyen per runner. It avoids arguments, irregular sums, and just makes things simpler. That said, if the runners bring an extra NPC in, they have to pay out of their pocket.

As for amount, 4k per run is really really low for professional runners. It's allright if you are going kinda low rent gangster style, but a real professional won't even get out of bed for less than 5k, and you'll need 10k or more if the run contains real danger.

Think of it like this, a middle lifestyle(which most professionals will try to maintain), costs 5k a month. If they are risking personal injury and jailtime, they will at least want to pay for a months lifestyle. When you take into account other prices(ammunition, doc wagon contracts, program updates, safehouses, bribes, cosmetic surgery, ect), a runner will end up having to go on 2 maybe even 3 5k runs a month to break even, more if they want to afford some wiz gear(like all those assault rifles and drones and such that cost thousands of dollars, not to mention 'ware and magical goods). That means if the run is particularly long and dangerous, the runner will need more (10k+) in order to keep up without going out every other night. Runners do get tired and they need time for the heat to die down.

I try to think of it in terms of nuyen per karma. In order to keep your nuyen expensive chars(hackers, samurai, ect), in line with your karma expensive chars(awakened, technos, ect), you should aim for (very) roughly around 2500 nuyen per karma. This doesn't have to be all at once, the characters may go a few runs with half that, only to get a big score later, but you should never dip below 1000 nuyen per karma, otherwise your characters can't afford decent gear.

Both, depending on the Johnson in question.

I'll add up how much I want to pay each runner, and then I'll have Johnson tell them the lump sum that the addition came to. I've had runners try to sneak extra teammembers onto the payroll before, and giving the team a lump sum to deal with means that I don't have to have all my player's OTHER characters (and half of their contacts) coming along for the 5k/runner. I mean, Johnson refused to pay when they pulled that bullshit, but there was... unpleasentness involved. Easier all around to just tell the team how much for the job. If I need to "educate" the players, I tempt them into screwing their Johnson another way.

Also I have to disagree about Runners not getting out of bed for less than "X" Nuyen, except for the best of the best I don't think most Runners could afford the hit against their reps for repeatiblied turning down jobs just because it wasn't worth it, there are always up and comers just itching to knock you off the ladder and they are more than eager to get the job done.

Besides, a Runner has to be able to keep the cred flowing in order to keep his dealers and whores happy right?

I tend to pay lump sum as a GM. I do try to figure out how much I want each player to get to figure out what the lump sum will be.

The advantage I find is that the Fixer of Johnson can advance a portion forward to handle costs. So if a team of 5 guys are offered 50k, 10% of that is 5k which should handle most bribes or whatever incidentals they will need. Likewise, at the end of the run, it is easy to account for the base pay, plus loot, - costs to figure the final amount to divide by.

Also, as an earlier poster mentioned, an amount per person encourages players to bring in everyone and their mother to help. A lump sum does not offer that and actually discourages bringing in others otherwise they have to share or pay out.

Primarily Lump Sums...
with a little sidelineing for individual payoffs...

You assume all 'runners are whoremongers and addicts.


Excellent, although it should be noted that looting is frowned upon, and will affect street cred negatively if discovered.


EDIT: WOOT! 1,000th post!

Looting *Shudder* Definitely not the sign of an Ice Cold Professional

Well looting is a touchy thing, my players arn't encouraged to take everything that's not nailed down on the other hand, if you kill some gangers, and have time to strip their unconcious forms of weapons as a discouragement to shooting at you in the future, and have time to do so. More power to you. Likewise, hired to steal something in transit, can you find someone to buy the semi itself off you after you've offloaded your assigned run? Your going to get a much reduced price for it of course because it's very hot, but 10 percent of 100k is still nothing to sneeze at for anyone no in Damien Knight's little black book

There's also a time factor involved ind eciding how much to pay runners. A months lifestyle upkeep for a day (or less) worth of work seems very fair for all concerned. On the other hand if a run is going to involve a lot of danger or a considerable amount of time the price starts to sky rocket.

That's the way i figure it at least.

With the new guide lines on karma rewards a 10+ karma per run is a realistic expection so to keep the karma/nuyen balance the run should pay 25k or more per runner.

Our GMs do lump sum that's always based on a figure calculated "per character." So 36 grand when we have 6 characters is actually 6 grand per character. If we negotiate up we might end up with the next number being 48 grand.

That's a good question too, what is most peoples maximum swing on how much they'll pay. i figure depending on who the J is much of the time his pay comes out of the pool of money set up to hire the team. Additionally i figure every operation has some sort of flat maximum that they'll go up to. As much as I enjoy the roleplaying aspects of Negotiations, there are only so many ways you can retread dialog of the Johnson making an offer and the team trying to get more money.

Do you assume that the vast majority aren't?

Hm... normaly i pay a total for a "job", but a per person for continouus services. (For example bodyguard job, or open-ended investigations (to a limit))

Hm... the minimum sums would be around:

Murder ~5.000 (Noname on the street, but a "professional" death)
Assassination ~15.000 and up to half a million (For a well known and well protected individual)
Break-In Datasteal ~20.000 and up to 200.000 (Depending on worth and extras like: no one shall ever know)
Sabotage ~15.000 and up to half a million
Bodyguard : ~250 per day and guard. Double pay for magic, multiple drone user, or highly cybered killing machine. +Bonus when shot at +medical bill taken care of
Investigations: ~250 per day and investigator. Maximum amount of time for results given.

I pretty much keep to the lowest number, the highest is for VERY special jobs (half a million to assassinate some CEO of a A or AA Corp which will really bring down the heat on the runners, and be a problem even to accomplish easily) Of course people can always negotiate a bit, but the Johnsons always have a hard limit which even the 11 Charisma Pixie can not crack.

And of course a complete street-level campaign varies also. "Cap tha' Foo'" can be just a 500 bucks-job. Life is cheap. Also "Sabotage"- read: thrash up the place is not worth much more.

My stance on Looting is: well you CAN do it, no problem. But the return values of blood-smeared, used weapons which are ID-bound to some dead dude is pretty low. (Except if it is really special. Explosive weapons and Laser/Railguns keep a lot of value. So Maybe 5% for normal stuff, up to 50% for something really cool/exotic/useful.
The one thing where i consider giving them a bad rep for would be "used" cyberware. It is not professional after killing someone to interrupt the job to cut him open neatly (or stealing his corpse for later "inspection"). That is the job of the organ dealers/Ghoul Tribe Representants or medic students working for DocWagon *g*.

Overall it is nice to see if they come up with own ways to earn their advancement. (The Hacker locating someone with better programs and somehow stealing them. Or locating paydata/evidence/ other expensive stuff on their own.) Johnsons don't pay so much EXCEPT it is really urgent and of extreme value to his Corporation. But low-middle lifestyle for a professional should be no problem. High lifestyle a possibility (If he works smart).

A normal 400 BP runner is quite good at what they do. Even 320 BP characters can be quite competent. For 'gutter scum' type characters try something like 275 BP. For a 400 BP character, yes, you shouldn't be getting out of bed of less than 5K.

We were hired to destroy a data center and in the process swiped a complete mainframe....

We wiped it and re-purposed it, so it was the same as destroyed, but it also benefited us.

Bob basically just explained my point better than I did. A 400BP shadowrunner is a very skilled professional, and shadowrunning is both expensive and dangerous. Sure you have take 2.5k nuyen runs, but thats not even a middle lifestyle cost, much less the cost of a new fake SIN if yours get's blown.

And as for runners getting a bad rep for refusing jobs with low pay, that doesn't really have much basis in reality. By accepting low paying jobs, you are basically telling the market you only worth a small amount, and thus people who need cheep runners will come to you. But if you raise your prices a little, you will get more offers for bigger runs with more payout(assuming you have the skills and track record to reasonably ask for those prices).

In the end, remember this: the players are shadowrunners, not street punks. If you need a package of drugs delivered, or a random guy offed in the middle of the street, you can pay some gang member a couple thousand nuyen to do the job. Shadowrunners are professionals though, they have better skills, better gear, better magic, and will get the job done without bringing attention to yourself. Hiring even a creation level team for a run should be a a very expensive proposition.

I personally think that the pay depends more on how established the runners are. For a team just starting out, they're gonna have to take a LOT of those "Cap Some Guy" missions to make ends meet. After a while though, a good team would realize they can start earning more because they'll be offered more by the Johnsons. If your team is already established when the campaign starts (or even if the campaign has been running a while), they should realistically be making more and have better jobs.

I was a DJ for a while in college and found that the longer I was in the business, the more my clients were willing to pay me, all because they knew who I was. A lot of my business came from people who saw us at a friend's wedding or some low-paying charity event and hired me to do a nicer gig. When I started, I charged ~$400 for a wedding and by the time I got out of the biz a few years later, I was making over a grand for 4 hours of music. I see shadowrunning to be a lot the same way. You aren't gonna be putting out flyers advertising assassinations, you're going to be relying on a fixer and decent word of mouth to score you those nice jobs. It's your rep that brings in the big dough, not being picky with jobs.

Also, it's good to still take on those low paying jobs occasionally. Look at them as a favor to a preferred fixer or Johnson and they'll return the favor next time you wanna negotiate a higher price.

--Neko

Not SR4 but I mix and match payment deals to story and variety.
Sometimes lump sum, sometimes per runner. Sometimes per speciality to match rep and skills, for tension or re-enforce realism. Tech, mojo, ware, contacts, stock or favours. Expensences or overheads/subcontract.

Mix and match. Remain flexible depending on the negotionation but I dont pay more than is reasonable per versillimiltude. I love that word. It expresses everything I do so succinctly, saves time.